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By All Means Available
Cover of By All Means Available
By All Means Available
Memoirs of a Life in Intelligence, Special Operations, and Strategy
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A vivid insider's account of a life in intelligence, special operations, and strategy from the Cold War to the war with al-Qa’ida • "[An] illuminating and richly detailed memoir." —The New York Times Book Review
"Deeply insightful...A sweeping and breathtaking journey that gives the reader unprecedented access to the courage, sacrifice, and bravado of our nation’s finest warriors, in their finest hours." —Admiral William H. McRaven, author of Wisdom of the Bullfrog and #1 New York Times bestseller, Make Your Bed

In 1984, Michael Vickers took charge of the CIA’s secret war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. After inheriting a strategy aimed at imposing costs on the Soviets for their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, Vickers transformed the covert campaign into an all-out effort to help the Afghan resistance win their war. More than any other American, he was responsible for the outcome in Afghanistan that led to the end of the Cold War.
In By All Means Available, Vickers recounts his remarkable career, from his days as a Green Beret to his vision for victory in Afghanistan to his role in waging America’s war with al-Qa’ida at the highest levels of government. In captivating detail, he depicts his years in the Special Forces—including his training to parachute behind enemy lines with a backpack nuclear weapon in the event of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe—and reveals how those experiences directly influenced his approach to shaping policy. Vickers has played a significant role in most of the military and intelligence operations of the past four decades, and he offers a deeply informed analysis of the greatest challenges facing America today, and in the decades ahead.
Riveting and illuminating, this is a rare and important insider’s account of the modern military and intelligence worlds at every level.
A vivid insider's account of a life in intelligence, special operations, and strategy from the Cold War to the war with al-Qa’ida • "[An] illuminating and richly detailed memoir." —The New York Times Book Review
"Deeply insightful...A sweeping and breathtaking journey that gives the reader unprecedented access to the courage, sacrifice, and bravado of our nation’s finest warriors, in their finest hours." —Admiral William H. McRaven, author of Wisdom of the Bullfrog and #1 New York Times bestseller, Make Your Bed

In 1984, Michael Vickers took charge of the CIA’s secret war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. After inheriting a strategy aimed at imposing costs on the Soviets for their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, Vickers transformed the covert campaign into an all-out effort to help the Afghan resistance win their war. More than any other American, he was responsible for the outcome in Afghanistan that led to the end of the Cold War.
In By All Means Available, Vickers recounts his remarkable career, from his days as a Green Beret to his vision for victory in Afghanistan to his role in waging America’s war with al-Qa’ida at the highest levels of government. In captivating detail, he depicts his years in the Special Forces—including his training to parachute behind enemy lines with a backpack nuclear weapon in the event of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe—and reveals how those experiences directly influenced his approach to shaping policy. Vickers has played a significant role in most of the military and intelligence operations of the past four decades, and he offers a deeply informed analysis of the greatest challenges facing America today, and in the decades ahead.
Riveting and illuminating, this is a rare and important insider’s account of the modern military and intelligence worlds at every level.
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  • From the cover Part I

    Preparation

    1

    Green Beret

    Dr. DeRiggi

    It was a teacher at Hollywood High School who changed my life. I was sitting at a table in the school library in February 1971, where I was supposed to be researching a paper for my international relations class—one of the few I found interesting. My teacher, Dr. Anthony DeRiggi, was a World War II veteran with strong views about U.S. foreign policy. A proponent of the “realist school” of international relations, DeRiggi was an admirer of President Nixon and a staunch supporter of the Vietnam War. I didn’t agree with him about Nixon and I had mixed feelings about the Vietnam War, but I liked his general approach to international relations, which emphasized the importance of power and the pursuit of national interests.

    I was either reading or more likely daydreaming about baseball or football when he walked over to my table and slipped a copy of that day’s New York Times in front of me. He pointed to an article and said, “You might be interested in this.”

    The New York Times had just published a major story on the CIA’s covert operations in Laos and its base at Long Tieng. The agency was employing a secret army of Hmong tribesmen in a large-scale paramilitary operation against the North Vietnamese Army along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.1 To this day, I don’t know why Dr. DeRiggi thought I’d be interested in that article, but I was. I imagined myself leading secret armies in far-off lands and winning against impossible odds. I imagined myself doing things that only a James Bond could do. And, for the first time, at the age of seventeen, I thought seriously about becoming a CIA officer.

    There wasn’t much about me at that point, though, that suggested I was destined for a life in intelligence and special operations. For starters, I was born with strabismus, or “crossed eyes,” and amblyopia, which caused my brain to process images from only one eye at a time, precluding my ability to see in three dimensions. My right eye was also turned significantly inward, which, needless to say, didn’t escape the notice of other children. Five surgeries between ages one and nineteen improved my appearance but could not give me 3-D vision. Fortunately, my brain found other ways to judge depth and distance. I was also blessed with excellent eyesight—better than twenty-twenty in my left eye and twenty-twenty in my right.

    I didn’t come from a military or CIA family. My father had served in the Army Air Corps during World War II and had earned a Silver Star and Purple Heart while flying with the Eighth Air Force as a B-17 bombardier and gunner over France and Germany in 1943.2 My grandparents were all immigrants, three of whom spoke only limited English. “Vecchiarelli” became “Vickers” a few years after my Italian grandparents, who hailed from a mountain town east of Rome, passed through Ellis Island. My mother’s parents had come from eastern Slovakia, her father finding work in Chicago’s steel mills. Los Angeles in those days was a magnet for immigrants, including refugees who had fled from Hungary and Cuba, so I had a lot of exposure to foreign cultures growing up. Most of my childhood friends were recent immigrants, and this sparked some interest on my part in world affairs.

    Our family watched the evening news once or twice a week, and we talked a bit about the evils of Soviet Communism and America’s difficulties in Vietnam. But we focused on international events mostly when we felt our own lives were threatened. During the October 1962 Cuban missile...
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By All Means Available
By All Means Available
Memoirs of a Life in Intelligence, Special Operations, and Strategy
Michael G. Vickers
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